Wesley's STCCG card of the day #40

Hi, folks,

I'm really getting tired of that one-card-a-day routine, so let's bring about some change and do TWO cards in one article:

NUTATIONAL SHIELDS / METAPHASIC SHIELDS

Events, both uncommon.
Plays on table. New technology enhances each of your ship's shields +2 for each ENGINEER [SCIENCE] aboard. Cumulative.
"Nutation adjusts the shield frequency phase rotation, thereby increasing shield efficiency. Used against the Borg in 2367." [Nutational]
"Revolutionary shields using overlapping subspace fileds. Invented by Ferengi Dr. Reyga." [Metaphasic]

Yeah, two cards, one effect. The only little difference is the trigger. Of course this difference isn't that small and actually it's a way to make this card type a little more powerful than it would otherwise be. Depending on deck style, some people play with more ENGINEERS than SCIENCE (the majority), some others (especially Klingon players) have the ratio inversed.

And don't forget that in Highlander decks this is an opportunity to quasi include two of this highly useful card in your deck.

Now what is it actually worth? Shields are used in various instances in the game and are affected by attacks, two dilemmas and two interrupts. Now what shield strength do you need to overcome various problems?

Here's a list:

A Shields 5               to survive Loss of Orbital Stability(C Int)

B Shields 7               to survive Crystalline Entity(R Dil).

C Shields 8               to avoid Auto-Destruct Sequence(U Int) damage

                          Survive any number of Borg attacks, if docked at
                                  a Romulan or Klingon Outpost
D Shields 9               Immunity to non-enhanced ship weapons
                          Survive any number of Borg attacks, if docked at
                                  a Federation Outpost.
E Shields 11              Immunity to ships with Bynars weapon enhancement(R)
F Shields 12              Survive a single Borg Ship(R Dil) hit (anywhere)
G Shields 24              Survive any number of Borg Ship attacks (anywhere)
H Shields 27              Immunity to Kurlan Naiskos'ed ships.

Reasonably, you can expect to gain 4 to 6 SHIELDS on each of your ships. For the more commonly used ships, this would give the Galaxy class and other big ships at least an "F" protection, Runabouts are now "D" or "E", even the small Shuttles are at least "A", if not "B" or "C" protected. Having both cards in play could make a Husnock ship "G", as 2 times 6 plus the basic 12 just pushes it over the edge.

A well-equipped Enterprise with Wesley(2), Data(2), Geordi(4), Roga Danar(2) and an Engineering Kit(8; Wes,Data,Riker & Picard) could even qualify for "H", meaning it would withstand a shot from a massive Warbird with a Kurlan Naiskos aboard without even taking a single dent... (Using the Nutational variant, accomplishing this with Metaphasic shields seems less realistic).

In my decks, I only use one of these cards (normally the Nutational, as my best decks are Fed or Rommies). With those lots of Engineering personnel I get enough protection from just one and an Engineering kit also doubles the protection besides having additional uses.

Favorite combo(s):

My above standard crew + the shield enhancer: Just fire at me, may I start laughing?
Nutational Shields + Engineering kit
Metaphasic Shields + Tricorder

Ratings for :                   NUTATIONAL      /       METAPHASIC

Wesley's rating:                8.0                     7.0
Jon's rating:                   9.5                     8.0
Allen Castaban's rating:        7.0                     7.0
Tim Kwong's rating:             8.5                     8.5
Habib's rating:                 8.5                     7.5
Bryan's rating:                10.0                     9.0
Jeff's rating:                  8.0                     7.5
Holt Kernodle's rating:         8.0                     7.5
Simon's rating:                 8.0                     9.0
Data's rating: (no joke!)       9.4444564               9.4443457
Jason's rating:                 8.5                     7.5
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 8.5                     8.0

PS: Get ready for something special in two days.
As you all know, "42" is the answer to life, the universe and about everything, (OOPS, wrong film:-) ) so you might find it in "STC_'s card of the day #42"

Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: blohmer@pips11.informatik.uni-mannheim.de

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

"A couple of lightyears can't keep good friends apart"